New Tek TBS1000 Scopes

[Herman]

I didn't find the difference between TBS1000 and TDS1000.
It's so experience,three times price of Chinese same specification oscilloscope.
I rather buy a  siglent’s  SDS1000 or others Chinese oscilloscope.

[nukie]

You don't have to call them 'Chinese' oscilloscope because most of them are made there. We should call them 'better budget scope'.

[Hydrawerk]

TBS1000 is not bad.  It is a retro scope! It is just very similar to TDS220 introduced in 1996... TBS1000 series might be good for schools, especially in lessons where students meet a digital scope for the first time... It might be a long lasting oscilloscope... Useful at school!
But TBS1000 is not for serious hobbyists... What I miss the most is the delayed time base. There is no such thing as on the picture. Picture taken from some Atten scope manual.

[obsoletepower]

WELL! Someone's confident in their brand  They must be if they put these entry-level scopes out on the market for these "entry-level" prices which are nothing to send a telegram home about..... Do they seriously think people are going to throw their wallets at them? I think so! Man, I sure hope that beginners do their research and not fall into the brand trap and just assume they are getting good value for money going with Tek at the low end. I fully support Dave's claim in getting a Rigol 1052E and hacking it into an 1102E.

Get a darn clue, Tektronix!

[Bored@Work]

Do they seriously think people are going to throw their wallets at them?

As others and I wrote, they are targeting the education market, those to dumb to know better, those having tax payer's money to spend so giving a rat's arse, those hoping to get good service with the instruments and those working on the basis of "nobody was ever fired fired for buying Tektronix".

Will they manage to find enough of those to make a buck? Well, the Danaher business system should tell them in time. And if the numbers aren't great Danaher has no qualms to chop a few heads off. Let's just hope it will be a few brain dead MBA heads - they anyhow won't miss their heads much.

[smashedProton]

I personally feel nothing wrong with buying Rigol test equipment.  They are active innovators that deliver a second rate product for low prices.  Their customer service is amazing too!  When my scope fell off the bench.      A knob snapped off, they took it and even recal'd it for me!  kudos rigol 

I wouldnt choose to buy from a fat cat american company just because they are american.  What happened to the TEK MSO scopes?  That looked pretty awesome

[obsoletepower]

It looks like a new "My First Scope".   Goes along with the Hakko FX-888 "My First Soldering Iron" look.  Guess it's a trend.

Don't you be putting down the Hakko FX-888 station Why does everything have to have that BOOOOORING industrial look? We're no longer engineers dead-set on functionality alone, we now demand that functionality wrapped up in a pretty package  %-B

Believe it or not, my decision making process regarding investing into my bench equipment involves looks too, and not as a low priority.

[c4757p]

The Hakko FX-888 is adorable. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

[EEVblog]

The Hakko FX-888 is adorable. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I agree.
First time I saw it it was a bit of a shock, but after seeing one in person, you kinda fall in love with the minimal yet funky look.
They hired a big name professional artist to design it and he even signed his name on it. I think it shows.

Dave.

[FenderBender]

Actually it's not as goofy in person as I expected it to be. I was expecting something like this


But it turned out looking more "professional" than I anticipated.

[SLJ]

It's still goofy looking.  And now that they've taken the knob away there's two reasons not to buy it.

[Hydrawerk]

Well, the Tektronix guys think that their TBS1000 is better than other similar scopes of the same class... They made competitive fact sheets. Try reading them just for fun... What do you think? IMHO the TBS1000 has a better ADC chip and longer 5 year warranty... And that is all... Then TBS1000 has many disadvantages... Anyway, the TDS220 was a good scope... but in year 1996. 

[mikeselectricstuff]

Well, the Tektronix guys think that their TBS1000 is better than other similar scopes of the same class... They made competitive fact sheets. Try reading them just for fun... What do you think? IMHO the TBS1000 has a better ADC chip and longer 5 year warranty... And that is all... Then TBS1000 has many disadvantages... Anyway, the TDS220 was a good scope... but in year 1996. 

A minor little point they missed on the Rigol comparison :
TBS 1062 £547  DS1052E £225
TBS1102  £726  DS1102E £273

Tek are really getting desperate.
RIP.

[branadic]

Come on guys... wake up and look at your new chinese overlords. They are gone to beat the shit out of you ...

Danaher don't care. They will run a lean tight ship and milk every last dollar of profit from every existing product line until the division (or company) dies.

Dave.

This is exactly what the LeCroy field staff told me. Danaher is not investing into Tek. Reverse to that LeCroy benefited from consolidation with Teledyne and their knowledge in GaAs and microwave technologies.

[amspire]

Well, the Tektronix guys think that their TBS1000 is better than other similar scopes of the same class... They made competitive fact sheets. Try reading them just for fun... What do you think? IMHO the TBS1000 has a better ADC chip and longer 5 year warranty... And that is all... Then TBS1000 has many disadvantages... Anyway, the TDS220 was a good scope... but in year 1996. 

A minor little point they missed on the Rigol comparison :
TBS 1062 £547  DS1052E £225
TBS1102  £726  DS1102E £273

Tek are really getting desperate.
RIP.

The Rigol comparison is just wrong. It says the Rigol can only save 8K data points. They clearly don't want to know about the 1Meg long memory in the Rigol.

Apparently, one of the big "advantages" of the Tek scopes is that they come in slower more expensive models. You get the option to pay much more for much less - yippee!

It says the Rigol has no Autorange button. I wonder what the "Auto" button on the Rigol does then?

Rigol menus can be three deep, whereas the Tek menus ar only two deep - so what? If the depth of menu's is such a problem, why didn't Tek have menus that are only one level deep? Or zero deep - if they had no menus at all, they would be the best DSO on the market according to their logic.

No mention at all of Rigol's 1GByte/S sampling with one channel!

The Rigol has no probe check function. So what - there is the standard probe test/calibrate pin.

Very, very sad.

[alm]

It's easy enough to make fun of the TBS 1000 marketing as is, without resorting to ridiculous arguments.

The Rigol comparison is just wrong. It says the Rigol can only save 8K data points. They clearly don't want to know about the 1Meg long memory in the Rigol.

They list 500 MS/s for all channels in that same table. The Rigol can't do 500 MS/s in dual channel mode with 1 M of memory. This is a weakness in its specs, and you can count on competitive comparisons to exploit it. That's how these things work. They're not wrong, just incomplete.

Apparently, one of the big "advantages" of the Tek scopes is that they come in slower more expensive models. You get the option to pay much more for much less - yippee!

They also list a 150 MHz model that the DS1000E series can't match.

It says the Rigol has no Autorange button. I wonder what the "Auto" button on the Rigol does then?

Autoset != autorange. Tek has both. Autorange will leave other settings alone and will continuously adjust the horizontal/vertical scale. Not terribly important, but could come in handy for some measurements that require both hands on the probe/DUT.

Rigol menus can be three deep, whereas the Tek menus ar only two deep - so what? If the depth of menu's is such a problem, why didn't Tek have menus that are only one level deep? Or zero deep - if they had no menus at all, they would be the best DSO on the market according to their logic.

This is a ridiculous argument, especially for an engineer. A larger screen is better, so scopes should incorporate a 30" TFT? Lighter is better, so the device should be lighter than air?

No mention at all of Rigol's 1GByte/S sampling with one channel!

Like I said, a weakness in its specs that competitors will exploit. They don't list sample rates for single channel operation.

[EEVblog]

It's pretty trivial to whip up a competitive fact sheet by finding really minor stuff your unit has that the competitor does not.
Conveniently leave out a few big things were you get your arse kicked, and other features that the competitor does not, and you have an impressive number of green ticks.
The customer has to weed through the waffle.
Notice they won't bother comparing with a similar priced Rigol 2000, because that would be beyond embarrassing.

Dave.

[EEVblog]

This is exactly what the LeCroy field staff told me. Danaher is not investing into Tek.

I'm sure there is some investment still happening, but what level that is, and what that allows them to bring to market, is in great doubt.
Can we expect some badge engineering next?

Dave.

[alm]

At least that would bring them in line with Agilent and Lecroy .

[M. András]

they were simply idiots to sell any share to the danaher corp

[SLJ]

Danaher just sold Apex to Bain Capital (remember Mitt Romney).  Bain now owns Apex which owns Weller.  Lets hope Bain does not decide to shut it down, break up Apex, and sell the Weller name off to China.  I'd hate to eventually have China be the only source for soldering tools.

[robrenz]

Spain is already the only source for soldering tools... JBC     I am only half kidding.

[M. András]

Danaher just sold Apex to Bain Capital (remember Mitt Romney).  Bain now owns Apex which owns Weller.  Lets hope Bain does not decide to shut it down, break up Apex, and sell the Weller name off to China.  I'd hate to eventually have China be the only source for soldering tools.

haha another "hit" for german quality. i wonder why did they kept the high prices for tools which are simple as far the stations go not speaking of the tips/irons themselves